Period of Popularity

Moteki is relatively a new Japanese word. Some people talk about and believe that “everyone has at least one short period of life when one enjoys more romantic attention than usual.” That is moteki.

If those people are right, I had such a period of life when I was a kindergartener.

One day, when I was a kindergartner, a girl gave me a paper. It wasn’t a letter. Most kindergartners can’t write letters. Instead, it was a strange picture. I assumed it was a kind of colored paper, and I kept it in my treasure box.

A few days later, someone called our house. Then, my mother severely scolded me.

The paper I had been given was not colored paper. It was paper money. I can’t remember exactly how much it was worth. But I think it might have been a lot. I didn’t understand the situation, but I gave the money to my mother. I think she returned the money to the female kindergartener’s parents with an apology.

That was on Valentine’s Day.

On Valentine’s day it is a Japanese custom for some women to give chocolates to men they love.

The female kindergartner wanted to give me chocolate, but she didn’t know where she could buy it because our town is kind of rural. So, she decided to give me cash instead. Of course, she stole the cash from her parents.

That was my moteki. I was almost a bad male companion who gets female customers to steal money and exploits them.

Now, bad male companions are a social problem in Japan. These male companions take a lot of money from young female guests. Some female guests steal money to give the companions.

I did this half a century ago.

I have never experienced such a moteki again. I have never been given cash by other girls.

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Picture by poosan

Lost in an RPG

It is possible to say that I am part of the first generation of video gamers. When I was in the second grade of elementary school, Japan experienced the arcade game boom. We spent almost $1 just to play one video game. Young people might laugh about that, but at the time, we spent so much money.

Arcade games transformed PC games and home game consoles. When I was in my twenties, I stayed up all night for a few days in a row to play PC games. Young people might also laugh about that. I was almost addicted to video games.

Now I believe that I and video games have built a good relationship. I am not crazy about video games. On the contrary, I have discontinued many games. I can’t finish many role-playing games (RPGs). For several reasons, I quit many games for a few months or years.

Sometimes I thought, “I want to clear a certain video game and watch the ending scene because I spent money on that game.” Then I continued an RPG, but I couldn’t remember who I was and where I was. An NPC speak to me in a friendly manner, but I couldn’t remember who they were. Did I have any special abilities? Then I just walked around, but I walked in circles. When I wanted to recover, I couldn’t return to the recovery spot. Then I would die. I couldn’t remember anything. It is possible to think that Alzheimer’s disease might be like this.

I also replayed a major game company’s game. It always let me know the story so far when I played the game. When I had played the game every day, I thought it was annoying, but whenever I resumed playing after a long break, this helped me a lot.

When we talk to an Alzheimer’s disease patient, we should talk about the story so far again and again with patience.

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Picture by Mogutani

Stage Carpenter and Carpenter

  I used to be a part-time actor. I have many friends who were stage carpenters.

Once, a house-building carpenter supported our project. I assumed that stage carpenters and carpenters are almost the same. The carpenters also assumed that, but they discussed things and decided that they would be in charge of separate parts of the stage. The setting was the backyard of an old house. There was an old well. The stage carpenters built the old house, while the carpenter built the old well.

They made a beautiful stage. The house and the well created a nice harmony. We could enjoy the last day of the performance successfully.

We started cleaning up the stage. There was a problem. The well that the house-building carpenter had made was difficult to take apart. He couldn’t come on the final day. The stage carpenters tried very hard to take it apart, but it was almost impossible.

Most stage carpenters build buildings to be strong enough until the end of the performance period. The stage settings are designed to be easy to take apart. Basically, stage carpenters don’t hammer nails into the setting completely. We can see the tops of the nails backstage. They only hammer all the nails completely in the case of the audience-facing side so that the actors can walk around without getting their costumes caught in the nails. After taking apart the setting, the carpenters use the lumber for another setting. It is economic and ecological.

Most house-building carpenters never think about taking apart what they’ve built. They have to build strong houses that last for decades or centuries. They would try their best to build houses that can especially withstand typhoons and earthquakes. They haven’t any concept for taking apart houses. When they need to perform demolition, they might use heavy machinery. Maybe they take apart structures on special occasions, like removing and relocating cultural properties. I believe there are special carpenters for that.

I assumed that stage carpenters and carpenters are the same, but actually, they are not. When I was a child, I assumed policemen and guards have the same job because they wear similar uniforms. In Japan, policemen have guns, while guards don’t have guns. Maybe most of us assume that some jobs are the same, but if we know about these jobs deeply, there might be some huge differences.

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Picture by freehand

Seeing Out

 

When I was a teenager, I was a student, but I participated in many theatrical plays, and I watched stage performances every week.

I loved mini-theaters. Most of these theaters had a custom of “seeing out.” After the performance, the actors stood at exit of the theater and met the audience, who could speak or shake hands with them.

One day, I watched a play that was directed by my senior. After the performance, I said hello to him.

Then he said something shocking to me: “Please watch the show again tomorrow.”

This surprised me because I had participated in too many plays. Of course, I was an unpaid actor. I was not financially well off. A ticket for a play cost $20 or $30 at the time, which I couldn’t afford, but I couldn’t say no to my senior. What should I do?

I thought about this a lot. Then I came up with a trick. I already knew the performance time. I visited the theater at the “seeing out” time on the dot. I pretended that I had watched the show and said hello to my senior, the director.

The mini-theater was so small that one could recognize every member of the audience. My trick might not have worked. My senior didn’t say anything, but he should not have asked me to watch the same play twice in a row. I hope my trick worked.

In the 1980s, Japan experienced a mini-theater boom. Some theater groups’ tickets were almost impossible to buy, but now most of the theater groups I mingle with struggle to sell their tickets.

Dear people, let’s go out and watch plays! We don’t ask you to watch the same play twice in a row, but if there’s a repeat performance, you should watch it!

Picture by Shintako

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Runes

 

 

Runes are letters used by ancient Germanic people. When I was a graduate student, my vice academic adviser was an authority on studying runes in Japan.

For my generation, “rune” was a popular word. We loved fantasy novels and animations. Some of these used runes as mysterious letters. For instance, some spells and secret words were written in runes.

My academic adviser told me this story. One day, one of the crew members of Gammera visited him. Gammera is a Japanese movie series about a huge turtle of the same name, similar to King Kong and Godzilla. My generation loved Gammera very much.

The crew member told my adviser about the next story of Gammera. In this story, people find an ancient document in ruins, upon which secrets about Gammera are written in runes. So the crew member wanted to know about runes.

My academic adviser was a nice person. He read the secrets about Gammera in Japanese. He translated the document to Proto-Germanic and wrote it down in runes. He also wrote down the document in Japanese so that an actor could read it out loud. Then he sent it to the crew member.

When he saw the movie in a theater, there was no scene where an actor spoke Proto-Germanic, but the paper that he had sent was shown on the screen from the back. They didn’t show the front of the paper. Only my adviser knew that the crew had used that paper.

I couldn’t resist my curiosity and asked, “How much did they pay for that?”

My adviser laughed and answered, “They gave me a box of snacks.”

Apparently, a real academic’s word doesn’t pay off financially.

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Picture by SuccessfulWitch

 

School Uniform

 

When I was a student, Japanese junior and senior high schools were in crisis. Some students were quick to use violence. There were many hooligans in schools. I read an article in a newspaper that said some high school students had a party and drank alcohol in a bar and were caught by police in my city.

 I don’t know if we have the same rules even now or not. When I was a high school student, my city prohibited teenagers from being outside at night. Teenagers couldn’t go out without a guardian at night. If teenagers were found on the street at night, police would catch them.

 I was a member of the drama club during high school. Sometimes I watched semi-professional plays. Most of their performances started from 7 p.m. My school was located far from downtown, so I didn’t have time to go back home to change my clothes. I went downtown wearing my school uniform. Most of the performances were about two hours long. I needed to be downtown at night.

 One day, after watching a performance at a theater, I took a subway to go home. A group of young men called out to me. They were my naughty classmates. They looked like adults because they wore mature clothing. Maybe they were worried about being caught by the police. They were excited and said, “You are great! You are enjoying nightlife wearing your school uniform!”

 It could be so. Watching a play might be enjoying nightlife.

 After that day, all of the naughty students at my school tended to respect me.

 I was a super naughty student. I enjoyed nightlife downtown in my school uniform. I have never been caught by the police.

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Picture by Minoru Mizuno

Shu-ichiro

 

 

 My name is Shujiro.

 I was named using a traditional Japanese naming style. If you are familiar with the style, you could guess that I am the second born son. “Jiro” means “second man.”

　I have one older brother and no sisters.

 Japanese traditional society tended to respect a firstborn son, because he would take over his parents’ work and property. Parents tended to educate and raise the firstborn son with great care. On the other hand, sons born later tended to be looked down upon.

 My father aged and had physical disabilities. My mother had Alzheimer’s disease. My brother and I should have taken care of them together—with my brother’s cooperation. But my elder brother ran away from difficult situations. He didn’t do anything. He didn’t help us financially. He ignored us.

 I took care of my parents, living with them for twenty years. I was a teacher and a part-time stage actor, but I quit those roles to focus on caregiving. I was hospitalized a few times because of the stress caused by caregiving. My brother never helped us. I wanted to write negative things about him, but I will not. I want to keep my writing clean.

 When I started to live with my parents and take care of them, I noticed a strange phenomenon. Some people started to mistake my name. Hospitals, temples, welfare facilities, and the neighborhood started to send me mail with the wrong name: “Shu-ichiro.” Hey! My name is Shujiro!

 “Ichiro” means “first man.”

 In Japan, firstborn sons were treated as special, and in return they were expected to take care of their parents.

 I took care of my parents. People started to think I was the firstborn son. “Shujiro” is not a proper name for the firstborn son. Maybe they thought it was a mistake. They corrected the “wrong name” to the “right name,” “Shu-ichiro.”

 When we had been seeing my mother’s doctor for over ten years, I talked about my family situation with him. The doctor was surprised and shouted, “Are you the secondborn son?” He had assumed I was the firstborn son.

 I respect Japanese traditions. But sometimes traditions include negative things. Most Japanese vaguely understand that discrimination is bad. We should not judge people based on race, ethnicity, gender, or religion. But most Japanese people judge sons based on birth order.

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Picture by roppu chop